A Race for Real Sailors

Bluenose and the International Fisherman's Cup 1920 - 1938

Keith McLaren

• Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781926812175
• Topic: Technologie et ingénierie
• Subtopic: Transport maritime

In the summer of 1920, the public following the latest America's Cup series were frustrated to find that every time the wind got up, the organizers called off the race. There was muttering in the taverns of Halifax and Lunenburg: why not show these fancy yachtsmen what real sailors can do? A Nova Scotia newspaper donated a trophy and put out a challenge to their rivals in New England, inviting them to meet the Maritimes' best in a "race for real sailors."

A Race for Real Sailors is a vibrant history of the Fishermen's Cup series, which dominated sporting headlines between the two world wars. The salt spray practically blows off the page as the author's arresting style captures the drama of each race and the personalities of the ships that contested them: the Delawana and the Esperanto, the Columbia and the Gertrude L. Thebaud, and dominating them all the Bluenose, the big brute from Lunenburg whose image shines on the Canadian dime to this day. Vying for the spotlight are the boats' larger-than-life skippers, among them Marty Welch, the hard-charging American who first took the cup; Ben Pine, the Gloucester scrap dealer whose passion kept the races afloat when they seemed destined to fade away; and the irascible, impossible Angus Walters, master of the Bluenose, who repeatedly broke American hearts but whose own heart was broken by Canada's refusal to come to the rescue of his beloved vessel.

This stirring and poignant tale is illustrated with 51 historical photographs and five maps, and rounded out by a glossary of sailing terms and an appendix of the ever-changing race rules. This is a story that will keep even confirmed landlubbers pegged to their seats, a tale of iron men and wooden ships whose time will never come again.

A common method of distributing a crew across a fishing ground was called a flying set. The dories would be lowered over the side and allowed to drift astern, then tied to the after rail. Once all the dories were out, the skipper would head towards the area he wanted to fish and drop his dories off, one at a time at intervals. He would then jog back and forth along his line of men, tending them like a mother hen. F.W. Wallace Collection, Maritime Museum of the Atlantic

1The Grand Banks

For centuries the Grand Banks, situated off the east coast of Canada, were considered one of Earth’s most important fishing grounds, feeding much of the Western world. The banks are undersea plateaus that rise from the continental shelf, a relatively shallow part of the North Atlantic that extends just under two hundred miles from the shore before the ocean bottom drops 6,000 feet (1,800 metres). There are over twenty individual banks, ranging from the largest, the Grand Bank of Newfoundland, in the northeast, to Georges Bank off Cape Cod in the south, and they are known collectively as the Grand Banks. The water depth on these plateaus descends from 100 to 600 feet (30 to 180 metres). The icy Labrador Current, flowing south over most of the banks, mixes with the warm waters of the Gulf Stream sweeping north along the eastern coast, as well as the freshwater currents flowing down from the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The swirling and mixing of the currents over the banks, along with the shallow water depth, creates a nutrient-rich environment that produces a dense growth of phytoplankton, the first link in the marine food chain.

Map of the Grand Banks

Until recently, this habitat sustained a tremendous population of groundfish (those living near the bottom). The most important species to grow there was the Atlantic cod. This fish alone was primarily responsible for the early settlement and colonization of North America. Cod was easy to catch and, when dried and salted, could be preserved for long periods, allowing for transportation to markets in Europe. Basque fishermen were the first to discover the potential of the fishery, in the fifteenth century, and they kept its location a secret until John Cabot stumbled across it in 1497 on his first voyage of discovery to North America. Cabot reported to his English masters that the waters off Newfoundland were so thick with fish that the progress of his vessel was impeded. Inspired by this vivid description, the powers of Europe rushed to stake their claims on the fertile fishing ground. By the mid-1500s, more than half of the fish eaten in Europe was from that source, and by the time the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620, the banks were providing an income to over a thousand vessels from England, France, Portugal and Spain. The fishery had quickly become an important part of the western European economy, supplying markets with thousands of tons of salted Atlantic cod each year.

As settlement became established along the northeast coast of North America, communities such as Gloucester and Lunenburg became homes to large fleets of offshore boats. Until the turn of the twentieth century, fishing methods remained virtually unchanged from the days of the early Basque fishermen. Wind-powered vessels and hook-and-line fishing were the standard methods of the time. Although the banks had been heavily fished for four centuries, the techniques used were relatively sustainable until modern methods were introduced. Over-fishing, combined with the use of the indiscriminate wire mesh trawl, which dragged the bottom and destroyed everything in its path, brought about the demise of the fishery. The seas that had fed the mouths of hungry North Americans and Europeans for hundreds of years are now considered by some to be a marine desert. Unable to support human demands, the Grand Banks fishery is likely to remain in a state of collapse for many years to come.

With his back to the weather, a fisherman on board the schooner Corinthian hunches over his trawl bucket as he finishes baiting his line. A mere snow squall would not slow work on a banker. Life was often cold, wet and miserable, but work would cease only if the sea became too rough to launch the dories—and even that was at the discretion of the master. Edwin Cooper, Thomas Collection, Cape Ann Historical Association

2Fishing Under Sail

On the waterfront in Gloucester, there is a hauntingly beautiful sculpture of a fisherman grasping the wheel of a banks schooner. Wearing traditional oilskins and sou’wester, he appears to be straining every muscle to hold his schooner on course. His face is etched with tension as he gazes intently at the unseen sails aloft. The rough grey-green patina of the bronze casting has been permanently streaked by rain and sea spray. Below, the inscription reads: They that go down to the sea in ships, 1623–1923. The memorial commemorates the many lives lost at sea in Gloucester’s first three centuries and is now surrounded by ten tablets listing the names of more than five thousand fishermen. In Lunenburg, near the Fisheries Museum, is another monument—not, like its Gloucester cousin, a figurative representation, but equally powerful and poignant. Eight polished black granite slabs rise up from the earth in a Stonehenge-like cairn, each positioned on the directional points of a compass, with a ninth pillar in the centre. Names of the dead, a seemingly endless list of them, are etched into the surfaces. The two communities share a common bond of loss, a bond further strengthened by the fact that twelve hundred of the names on the Gloucester memorial belong to Nova Scotians who crewed Gloucester vessels.

Back in Gloucester and just up the street from the famous Man at the Wheel is perhaps the most moving monument of all. It was commissioned in August 2001 by the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives’ Association to commemorate the families, the women and children, left to mourn those lost at sea. It is a simple statue of a mother and two children facing seaward, searching for a glimpse of the tall masts of the husband’s and father’s schooner. The sculpture strikes an even deeper chord than do the other two, speaking to the awful grief of the survivors who must somehow find a way to cope with the desolation of loss and carry on. The lives of those who depended on fishing for a living were always hard and too often ended in tragedy.

There was no romance in a working life at sea. The dirty and often brutally exhausting labour took place in uncertain and perilous conditions, where survival depended on constant vigilance and good fortune. Simply slipping from a footrope or being struck by a swinging boom could end a life in an instant. Many were swept overboard, lost in heavy fog or swamped in dories holding too many fish. Sometimes entire vessels and crews would go missing, smashed to pieces on a lee shore, run down by an Atlantic steamer in thick fog or torn apart in a hurricane, leaving no clues as to their passing. However, the promise of better pay than for work ashore, the camaraderie and the pride in doing the job well were viewed as compensation for the constant risk. Fishing was always a gamble, dependent on nature and the market for a reasonable return. Companionable shipmates, a competent skipper, a good cook and reasonable fo’c’sle crew made any hardship tolerable.

Life aboard a fishing schooner was more of a co-operative venture than the rigid hierarchy of the merchant marine. Fishermen worked as shareholders, and so their livelihood depended on the fortunes of their vessel and how hard they worked. They were engaged on a share system, their compensation paid out in proportion to the catch, after the vessel’s costs had been deducted: the food, bait, salt, ice and wages for the paid members of the crew (the cook and perhaps one or two deckhands). In addition there could be one or two children on board who were paid a small wage to work as “throaters” or “headers,” until they were considered old enough to work the dories. These children were often as young as ten or eleven, sent to sea to help out their families and learn the trade. The largest share went to the boat’s owners—for the hire of the vessel—followed by the skipper, who normally took twice that of his crew. The rest was divided among the fishermen in one of two ways. If the crew were known to the skipper as hard-working men, he would generally give them “even shares,” regardless of how many fish were caught in each dory. If, on the other hand, he had a crew of strangers whose fishing abilities were unknown to him, the skipper would have the catch divided “by the count.” With two men to a boat, dory-mates were credited with the number of marketable fish they caught as a pair, and those catching the most took the highest share. Although there were reasonable arguments to be made for both systems, some skippers insisted on “by the count” on all occasions because they thought it encouraged competition and therefore greater catches. Those that counted highest were ranked “high dory,” whereas those who consistently came out “low dory” often lost their jobs. “Even shares” was considered more democratic and fair by some, as the loss of gear and fish was often the result of bad luck rather than incompetence. But a good skipper had to be sure of his crew before he offered “even shares.”

The crew of a typical banks schooner consisted of sixteen to twenty-four men. If a schooner was running eight dories, it would require a crew of sixteen. In addition to the crew, there was the skipper, a cook and one or two paid hands, who did not fish but tended to the ship and the needs of the men. These hands were also available to launch and recover dories and work the ship until the crew returned. When not fishing or on passage, the fishermen were required to help stand watches, provide lookouts, steer the vessel and handle sail. Once on the banks, they were either fishing or sleeping—and usually very little of the latter. When handling sail, even for the smallest job the entire crew would be called out, so there would be no accusations of favouritism.

Depending on the distance between port and the fishing ground, it could be hours or days until the men began to fish. Once on the banks, the day usually started at about three or four in the morning when they began putting bait on their trawls and readying their boats. The reason for starting so early was explained to writer Fred Wallace by Captain Harry Ross of the schooner Dorothy M. Smart. It was “better,” he said, “to begin your fishing early than to fish late. When you swing ’em over at two, or three or four—’specially during broken weather—the men have daylight ahead of them should it breeze or shut down thick. I’d sooner be caught with my dories astray in a fog or a snowstorm at four in the morning than at four in the afternoon. More chances of pickin’ ’em up.”¹ Once the crew was “baited up,” the skipper would sing out to cast off, with his schooner slowly jogging along or hove to under foresail and jumbo sails. The top dory in each nest would be readied with all her thwarts or seats, plugs and gear securely in place, and was then lifted over the side by means of dory tackle descending from the main and fore mastheads. The two-man crew would carefully time their jump into the boat once it was over the rail, illuminated only by lantern and guttering kerosene torches, often with quite a sea running. The dory was then allowed to drift astern and was tied up to the quarter rail. After each was let go, it would be led aft and made fast to the others until there was a long string of boats behind the schooner. With all the boats in the water, the skipper would head off to a favourite fishing spot and let the dories go, one at a time, along a line several miles long. This was known as a flying set. The schooner would then act as a mother hen tending her chicks, jogging up and down the line or heaving to, ready at any time to service the boats. Once a dory crew had set their trawl, they would row back to the schooner and go aboard for a coffee break or mug-up before heading out again to haul in the trawl. The dorymen would signal the schooner when their boat was full of fish, by raising an oar or waving one of the torches, and the schooner would come alongside to pick up the load.

Some skippers preferred another method whereby they anchored their boats and had their dories fan out in all directions, like the spokes of a wheel. The dory crew would row to a likely spot, sometimes a mile from the schooner, to set their trawls. This was a method favoured by salt fishermen, but it had its drawbacks. If the wind and sea picked up, the men left aboard the schooner would be unable to raise the anchor on their own except by cutting the cable, and those dories on the leeward side would have a hard pull upwind to safety. On the other hand, if thick fog were to settle in, the dory crew would have a good idea of the direction and distance in which to find their schooner.

Atlantic cod, the mainstay of the northern fishery, is forked from the dory, over the rail and onto the deck. The fish would be headed, gutted and split, then taken below to be either packed in ice (if being sold fresh) or salted down (to preserve it for the longer term). Livers would be stored separately in barrels, to be sold for cod liver oil. Cape Ann Historical Association

The dory was the workhorse of the Grand Banks fishery. It was a small, flat-bottomed craft with flared sides, a pointed bow and a tombstone stern, cheap to build and stout enough to withstand the rigours of offshore fishing. It could easily be handled on and off the schooner and, after the thwarts were removed, nested onto another, so taking up little space on deck. An 18-foot (5.5-metre) dory seemed a mere sliver on a distant sea but had the capacity to carry more than two tons of fish with...